This might not make much sense if you haven’t already read parts 1 and 2. Well… part 2, at least.

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It occurred to me at the time – I actually had the thought – that the situation we were in reminded me of one of those crazy African travel blog entries I’d read online. Dropped off in the middle of nowhere, not really knowing where we were, where we were going, or how we were going to get there. I had the sense that we were in the middle of a great story, but at the time all I wanted to know was how it was going to end.

A large man in a military uniform was the last person to step off the bus. Because he stopped to purchase something from the roadside stand, he was soon the only other passenger still around. As he passed by us on the way down the road, Oksana asked if he knew where the river was.

He gestured across the countryside, “I’m not sure,” he said. “But I think it’s three or four kilometers that way.” His accent was thick, but perfectly understandable.

Both Oksana and I looked the way he indicated. It looked no different than any other direction.

“Do you… um,” I began. “Do you know how we can get there?”

“I would wave at the first car you see,” he replied. Oksana and I looked up and down the dirt road. There were no cars.(more…)